


Fuyu ni Hana

by Dragestil



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hanzo is a God, Lone Wolf Hanzo Shimada, Longing, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 12:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13589844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragestil/pseuds/Dragestil
Summary: The god of the forest knows well the patterns of the seasons.





	Fuyu ni Hana

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the Yama no Kami universe where Hanzo is a god. Consider this an interlude in that saga. For more of my work and to make requests, please visit my [Tumblr](http://dragestil.tumblr.com)

It went like this - it always did.

She was young and wild, rebellious and sweet. She had wildflowers in her hair and sunshine in her eyes. She prayed for a good harvest for her family, and the strength to provide for and defend them. When the wolves of the forest sang around her, she joined their calls with her own human approximations, and it was the most beautiful song he had ever heard.

It went like this - it always did.

She grew older and smarter. She prayed for her father’s health, her mother’s happiness, her own freedom. She fought to maintain competing duties - obligation to her family chafing against her desire to be her own person, to achieve her dreams. When inevitable war came surging into her valley, her home, she did what she could, what she must. In the oft forgotten temple deep in the heart of the woods, she sheltered her family and friends and prayed for safety.

It went like this - it always did.

The foreigners came and burned the land. They pillaged and murdered and destroyed whatever fell lucklessly into their hands. They brought their wickedness to the edges of the forest, chasing down the unhappy few who saw the devastation firsthand but made it almost to safety. They spilled blood beneath the thick canopy and the roots of the trees tasted despair and pain.

It went like this - it always did.

The girl with a warrior’s heart drew a weapon of her own. When the footsteps of invaders encroached on the hidden shrine, she prayed for courage and fearlessness. She prayed for the strength to face death smiling. She prayed for the will to stand between a steel sword and those that she cared for. She prayed for salvation - by her own hands or any others’.

It went like this - it always did.

The wolves howled hungrily in the night and painted the forest with swaths of crimson. No outsiders could slaughter in their domain. No defilers could escape unscathed. And leading them all was the master of the hunt, the lord of the mountain. With fire in his eyes and rage in his bones, he loosed arrows from the shadows, taking down each mark with expert precision. He sang the song of retribution, of righteous fury.

It went like this - it always did.

The sun rose blood red, and the forest reeked of death. But the temple was safe, the shrine untouched. Not a drop of blood had been spilled within the clearing. And the girl who would have fought wept. She cried for the ones she could not save and for the ones that had been spared. She cried for her own fears and the tremble in her hands when she stood guard through the night desperately grasping her father’s sword. But even more than all of those things, she cried for him.

It went like this - it always did.

Even gods have weaknesses. By the morning, his forest was defended, but his body was battered. Though he had mercilessly sent the marauders to their deaths, they had not gone easily. Arrows and blades alike had found purchase through gaps in his armour. And by dawn he was panting and weak, dragged by his pack to the safety of his own shrine.

It went like this - it always did.

The people fled the temple at the sight of bloodied wolves and a bloodier man. They met no resistance or trouble and escaped to their ruined homes to begin the process of rebuilding. But the girl who sang with wolves and left countless devotions to the forgotten shrine did not flee. She laid down her blade and crept toward the wolves and the man slowly until they understood her intention.

It went like this - it had never gone like this before.

She helped to bring the shattered god back to his home. With what knowledge of the forest and of medicine she had, she tended to his wounds. She hummed lullabies from her childhood as she gently washed blood and dirt from his face. She hushed him when he tried to speak, and stilled him when he strained to get up.

She did not go home to her family that night. Or the night after. Or many, many, many nights after that. She nursed him back to health and still prayed every evening for the safety of her family - and of him. She did not ask his name. Or his past. Or his intentions. She did not question about the wolves who brought her small game to cook or led her to the secret spring beyond the clearing where she could bathe and refresh herself.

Each day he grew stronger. Each day he felt his power returning to him. And each day he saw more in her than he had ever seen before. She was as untamable as the forest, and the strength of her convictions was as unshakable as the mountain. Even when he caught her weary sighs or the sorrow in glances he was not meant to see, he knew she would not give in or give up. And though his wounds were healed, he ached in a way he had never known.

It went like this - and it always would.

The god of the forest, of the mountain, of harvest and of death, prayed for the safety of the girl with flowers in her hair and love in her heart. He prayed that she might have happiness, a long life, that she might know no more suffering than what she had already been made to bear. He weaved his prayers into the calls of songbirds and the howls of wolves and the babbling of streams.

But most of all he prayed for her to forget the shrine and the mysterious man with his dutiful wolves. He prayed that she let go of the days spent tending to someone who could not die, who would not follow her into a proper life and old age. He prayed that she find a love beyond the clearing in the woods and forget what could never be.

It went like this - and it always must.

She was gone by the time winter came. Everything had become foggy for her within the shade of the forest. She heard familiar calls from the world beyond - her name ringing out from the open fields. She did not say goodbye, but she did not even remember she had never been alone. He wept at his own shrine, at the flower resting delicately on the altar, ignorant of the snow blanketing the ground outside. The god of the mountain found himself alone once more. In spring, the flowers would return. But the girl would never come again. 

It went like that - it would go again and again.


End file.
